I have been holding an HDFC bank account since 2010 and it has either been an NRE account or a salary account almost all the time. HDFC Bank has one of the largest credit card portfolios in India and hence it is obvious to find the HDFC card in almost all account holder's wallet. Diner's Club which was the pioneer in starting a credit card system globally long back has had an extremely small presence in India through Citibank earlier. So they joined hands with HDFC to create a credit card portfolio which is big enough.

HDFC offers 4 cards which are attached to the Diners Club brand. One of the card has a Jet Airways affiliation which offers JP miles. The other three offer HDFC points which can be used on a dedicated web portal run by their concierge ( click here). You can use these points to redeem for flights, hotels, movie tickets, and paying your postpaid, DTH bills.

Though HDFC has a huge list of cards available on offer, they are all either VISA or MasterCard affiliates which run standard run of the mill offers like other banks. Since Diners was new in India they have been running aggressive programs to acquire new customers as well as retain old ones.

So my story started in 2013 when I was offered HDFC Diners Reward card which is their basic card and usually life time free. I did not use it much barring a few times. After a year or so I was offered an upgrade which I happily took which is a Premium card ( and has some good features like International lounge Access though capped but still worth using) and earned a whole lot of points using their monthly promos. I have personally utilized these points to redeem for international hotel bookings & flights ( and got great value). Also use my current diners cards to access domestic & international lounges when I travel. 

Finally after substantial followup I was able to get hands on their top card which is the Diners Black card ( with unlimited international lounge access for all primary and supplementary card holders).

As per my view it is one of the best cards to hold giving you effectively 3.3% return on usage and is pretty widely accepted now ( runs on all HDFC machines).

For the wider audience I am putting a comparative table of all HDFC diners club cards.

The only difficulty you might face in getting the card is the confusion that prevails with HDFC bank employees on the cutoff for salary or income for this card. However if you hold a preferred or Imperia account after some follow-up you should be able to get this card.


The card has a joining fee of INR 10000 and you will get equivalent points in your account so no loss beyond the service tax, annual fee from second year is INR 5000 which gets waived if you are a heavy spender ( INR 500K). But you tend to get much more value from this card than the joining fee.   

Yes Bank has recently launched its portfolio of credit cards after a long time. They were earlier offering American Express cards in India but not as a co-branded card. The current portfolio of the cards launched are under MasterCard and there are 7 variants launched. I would be reviewing the top two cards which have some meaningful benefits. Though the lower tier cards are being offered free to customers, there is not much value in it. The cards were launched in August 2016 and after considerable follow-up I was able to land with a Yes First preferred card. I must warn however that the service levels are not the best you can get from a lot of local as well as international banks, still the benefits outweigh the pain for the moment.

                                         

                                        

Here is the value table for both the cards. Initially I wanted the highest card but I don't satisfy the salary criteria and also I don't see myself making it my primary card since the threshold of bonus points is very high.

Many bankers are offering the preferred card as life time free under the relationship that a person has with the branch. Do have a look and comment your views on the value you see in these cards.

The way they send their card is great, you get your embossed Priority pass along with your card directly. The best part is that you get free visits in any lounge internationally as well on your priority pass and gives good competition to HDFC Diners cards.Not too many offers as of now on these cards, also their reward structure is not very appealing either. Lets hope they improve over time.